


two roads

by renlyne



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Melancholy Vibes, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 20:56:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renlyne/pseuds/renlyne
Summary: 14 August 2018He’s lying on a towel in Muskoka woods, watching the sun set over the lake, head inexplicably swirling with a Robert Frost poem.





	two roads

**Author's Note:**

> Silv said that she was having emotions about Nick's birthday and Jx declared that she "wanted to be utterly destroyed please", making this pretty much inevitable x
> 
> This is entirely fictional, I am not Robert Frost, etc.

  
  
  
“D’you ever think about chaos theory?” 

He’s lying on the dock on a towel, fancy Muskoka chair foregone for the chance to stretch out in the sun. 

“What?” 

It’s a fair question, her confusion understandable, but somehow all he can think is that his life — the fact that he’s lying here at a lake asking Cindy Crawford about chaos theory — just proves whatever point is swirling around in his head. Or, not _proves_ , maybe, but… feeds into, somehow. 

“Chaos theory. Like, if one thing had been different, if you’d made just one different choice or reacted just slightly differently to one little thing, your whole world would look different.”

She lifts her sunglasses. “Ice cream makes you deep.” Her smile is kind, despite the teasing note in her voice, and he thinks once again that he completely understands how she was so successful. She’s so beautiful, so strong, and so kind. There’s a light in her eye that says she’s laughing at him, a little, when she goes on. “The butterfly effect?”

He understands the look now, laughs a bit himself as he traces a thumb along the edge of the wing on his sternum. 

“Yeah, exactly.”

She waves her hand, smile still on her face. “Is this about the girls at the ice cream shop? Because admittedly it might be nice to be able to order graham crackers without it trending, but that seems like a dangerous road to start down.”

He almost wants to laugh again. He’s overdue for a slightly melodramatic reflection on fame. 

If only that were it. 

“Nah, they were nice. It’s not— I was just thinking, like. It’s a friends’ birthday today.”

“Mmm?” Cindy hummed questioningly. 

“A good friend. Someone I— A few years ago, I wouldn’t be here, I don’t think. I couldn’t have come now. I would’ve made sure I was in London, and he would’ve, like— He’s not there either, so it wouldn’t matter if I was there, but…” He blew out a breath. _But it would have. It_ could _have, even now. It could’ve mattered._

_It wouldn’t matter if I was there, but a couple years ago I would have made sure I was in London, and he would have made sure he was home._

He’s lying on a towel in Muskoka woods, watching the sun set over the lake, head inexplicably swirling with a Robert Frost poem. 

  
_Two roads diverged in a yellow wood._

  
Maybe he’s just getting heatstroke. He’s been to Canada before, of course, but it’s still hard to reconcile the reality of it with his image of polar bears and downhill skiing. Doesn’t match with the thirty-plus degree weather and humidity that’s making it hard to get a breath. 

“Never mind. Sorry, I’m in a weird mood.”

“It’s the ice cream,” Cindy says sagely, smile playing around her mouth again. “Brings the weirdness out in all of us.” His mouth quirks in return, endlessly thankful for friends who seem determined not to push, not to treat him as a curiosity. By the time he blinks again her smile has lost the teasing edge, soft as she adds, “If you want to call him though, you know you’re welcome to go up. Or use our phone, anything.”

He smiles back in thanks, shakes his head. The time zones are all wrong, and plus he’d sent his message already. Added his onto a pile of texts he knows Nick isn’t going to read until at least the morning, because he’s on holiday with his mates and he’s not going to pass up the chance to chat with Pix and Alexa and everyone to scroll through his phone. It’s Nick, and Nick’s not going to let himself ignore the people in front of him to give attention to the people who are absent. 

He might’ve, once. For Harry. 

He might’ve, but not now. 

  
_Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,_  
_And sorry I could not travel both_  
_And be one traveler, long I stood_  
_And looked down one as far as I could_  
_To where it bent in the undergrowth._

  
He’s lying on a towel in Muskoka woods watching the sun set over a lake, and it’s stunning, fir trees everywhere, water mostly still, the sound of small waves lapping at the edge of the dock. The sun is warm on his back, and he’s wearing yellow swim shorts that he bought a million years ago because they’d reminded him of Nick’s pair, and at the time that was reason enough for Harry to do anything. 

He wants to wonder when that changed. Which smile was a little too strained, or which Daily Mail article hit a little too close to home. He wants to wonder which butterfly flapped its wings and caused reverberations that pushed him and Nick from head over fucking heels to the kind of people who text from the lake in Canada to the beach in Spain on their birthdays. 

Wants to, but can’t. 

He can’t, because he knows. 

It wasn’t a smile or an article or a butterfly. It wasn’t a seemingly inconsequential change in conditions prompting some significantly different outcome. 

It was Harry, looking at his life, at the choice between happy-but-tethered and regret-but-free, and wishing he were like Lou, or Liam. Wishing he wanted contentment and belonging. 

Making his choice. 

  
_Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,_  
_And sorry I could not travel both_  
_And be one traveler, long I stood_  
_And looked down one as far as I could_  
_To where it bent in the undergrowth;_

_Then took the other, as just as fair,_  
_And having perhaps the better claim,_  
_Because it was grassy and wanted wear;_  
_Though as for that the passing there_  
_Had worn them really about the same._

  
He’s pleased, most days, that he hadn’t made a mess. That it had just been Harry leaving, over and over, and Nick letting him. That those years of being completely fucking obsessed with each other had just faded mostly naturally into the kind of friendship that was still so important, and could be picked up whenever they saw each other. (But that had to be picked up, because it wasn’t like it used to be, wasn’t ridiculously expensive international phone bills and living in each other’s pockets on tour breaks and falling into the back of taxis, daring anyone to guess where Harry was planning to spend the night. Wasn’t straight-through-crew radio and whispering filth into Nick’s ear front row at fashion week, knowing there were cameras and not caring quite enough. Wasn’t brunch in Primrose Hill or Greek salads or curries at midnight.)

It feels a little foreign now. Almost like it happened to someone else. He remembers the feeling, the rush of being the first person Nick would call with anything and everything. Remembers being with him when Nick found out about Breakfast. Remembers how Nick hadn’t hesitated to tell him, hands still shaking and ending with _Christ, I’ve got to call Aims, I’ve got to call my mum._ Remembers missing him so desperately on tour and thinking that maybe this was it, that this might be what he was singing songs about. 

He’s pleased, most days, that he still has the echo of that. Pleased that sometimes when they’re together it still feels like that, like they can have all of that closeness back. 

(Other days it hurts, thinking about time passing and things changing and obsession fading. About moving on or growing up or accepting that _love_ — if that’s what it was, if that’s enough to capture that feeling of wanting to merge into one, to open himself up and stuff Nick inside — is not always enough. Doesn’t conquer all. Thinking about how moving forward, towards bigger and bigger tours, more authentic albums, the chance to write solo music, to sing with Stevie Nicks, to go to France and work with Christopher Nolan, to do a full scale modelling campaign for Gucci, to sell out arenas on his own — how moving forwards like that usually means you don’t get the chance to go back again.)

  
_Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,_  
_And sorry I could not travel both_  
_And be one traveler, long I stood_  
_And looked down one as far as I could_  
_To where it bent in the undergrowth;_

_Then took the other, as just as fair,_  
_And having perhaps the better claim,_  
_Because it was grassy and wanted wear;_  
_Though as for that the passing there_  
_Had worn them really about the same,_

_And both that morning equally lay_  
_In leaves no step had trodden black._  
_Oh, I kept the first for another day!_  
_Yet knowing how way leads on to way,_  
_I doubted if I should ever come back._

  
He’s lying on a towel in Muskoka woods and the sun has set, leaving stunning pink and orange and red in its wake, and it’s Nick’s birthday. 

It’s Nick’s birthday, and Nick’s in Spain, and the sun must have set hours ago for him. It’s Nick’s birthday, and the sun is just setting now for Harry where he’s lying on the other side of the world, and there was a time when Harry was Nick’s most important person. 

(Harry sent him a text this morning, hours and hours ago, and Nick still hasn’t read it.)

  
_Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,_  
_And sorry I could not travel both_  
_And be one traveler, long I stood_  
_And looked down one as far as I could_  
_To where it bent in the undergrowth;_

_Then took the other, as just as fair,_  
_And having perhaps the better claim,_  
_Because it was grassy and wanted wear;_  
_Though as for that the passing there_  
_Had worn them really about the same,_

_And both that morning equally lay_  
_In leaves no step had trodden black._  
_Oh, I kept the first for another day!_  
_Yet knowing how way leads on to way,_  
_I doubted if I should ever come back._

_I shall be telling this with a sigh_  
_Somewhere ages and ages hence:_  
_Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—_  
_I took the one less traveled by,_  
_And that has made all the difference._

  
He could’ve had it. The house and the dogs and the cats and the baby with Harry’s curls, who would’ve smiled Nick’s smile, because babies learn facial expressions by imitation and Nick is kindness personified, would have glowed down at that baby every hour of every day. 

He could have had it. 

Or, alternatively, he could have friendship, so much less complicated, so many fewer tethers. So much more opportunity to say _yes_ when he had the chance to spend a few weeks in Italy, to fly to Canada on a whim, to add another six months onto his first solo tour, to sell out arenas all on his own, to star in a movie by Christopher Nolan, to escape to paradise and record an entire album with spectacular musicians. To fly to LA because he felt like seeing Jeff, to sing on stage in Shanghai at the VSFS without worrying that anyone would miss him back home, to float around the globe meeting designers for custom clothes fittings, to step out on stage after stage night after night and hear that tidal wave of adoration, to get to read signs about how many lives he’s changed for the better. To turn on the radio and hear Sign of the Times playing back at him. (To go to Mallorca and pretend that he’d chosen differently, just for a minute, with the stars bright above him and Wild Thoughts blasting all around them.)

There are times when he wishes he were like Louis or Liam, that he craved contentment and wanted a home. 

But he’s twenty-four and can do anything, can _see_ anything, can be anywhere he wants and experience everything he could dream of, and who would he be, if he were capable of making choices that could stop that? That would mean he’d have to take someone else into account? 

Who would he be, if he could have offers like that made to him, and not accept?

Who would he be, if he had the chance to do something unreal, something _incredible_ , something that people dream about but never actually _do_ — 

Who would he be, if he had chances like that, but chose a life that meant he might want to say no?

His life isn’t normal, and he can’t have normal things. Can’t have it both ways, if he wants to be free to drop everything and hop continents on a random Tuesday in August. Could have had either of the two dreams, which makes him so, so lucky, because a lot of people don’t get the chance at even one. Don’t get to pick between a life that they know would make them happy and a life that would let them be extraordinary. 

A lot of people don’t get the chance at either of those, but many people get the chance at a life that would make them happy. 

He got the choice of either one. 

  
And who would he be, if he didn’t choose a life that would let him be extraordinary?

  
  
_Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—_  
_I took the one less traveled by,_  
_And that has made all the difference._

  
  
  
  
Fin.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments make this whole dreadful writing business worthwhile
> 
> (or alternatively, come cry with me on [tumblr](http://daretomarvel.tumblr.com/) ♡)


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